Honouring Indigenous knowledges: planetary health (curriculum+) obligations in teacher education, sport education, health education and health and physical education

ABSTRACT

This paper documents historical and contemporary evidence of the HPE field’s honouring Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing – and argues that much more needs to be done. Underpinning this is our philosophical belief that honouring Indigenous knowledges ultimately contributes to planetary health. We begin the paper with the positioning of ourselves within the context of this work. Extrapolating this, we introduce our particular contexts, to help convey the complexity of socio-historical and political influences. Following this, we document a series of events in our field of HPE that convey working towards honouring Indigenous knowledges and illustrate examples of Indigenous ways in educational institutions. The final section introduces the other papers of this special issue. The issue captures a moment in time where practices associated with racism, specifically towards First Peoples, at systemic, institutional, embodied and epistemic levels, are being challenged and countered, yet still require further dismantling. We regard the movement towards obligations of not just acknowledging, but also engaging with and for First Peoples, as still not strong enough to claim our field is inclusive or honouring. Such movements signal important opportunities not just for HPE curricula, but also for the pedagogies, topics, partnerships and research for planetary health more widely.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous
• settler/immigrant
• teacher education
• anti-racism
• inclusion
• decolonising

Acknowledgements and author position statements

We open this special issue in a collective manner underpinned by Indigenous¹ practices by acknowledging those who have gone before us, shown us, and shared with us their knowledge and wisdom. We also invoke the core values of humility and service by positioning ourselves and highlighting our visitor status on land that is not our own. This positioning is not about a simple naming but rather is about giving testimony to, and restoring, spirit (Smith, 1999). We are from different lands. Knowing that our spaces influence our ways of knowing, being, doing and valuing in our field, we acknowledge those lands and the traditional custodians, or First People of the lands.

As authors and editors of this special issue, we come from a range of places with diverse backgrounds, but share a common passion for honouring Indigenous knowledges, especially in the broad areas of health and education. We have known each other for several years and have participated in a range of discussions within the aforementioned fields. These discussions and interactions have been ongoing and when lisahunter approached Jean and Hayley with the idea of convening a special issue focused on honouring Indigenous knowledges, our collective energy was once more ignited.

Indigenous scholars articulate the importance of relationships and developing relational ways of being, knowing, doing, feeling and seeing (see Fa‘avae et al., 2023; Fa‘avae, 2022; Hoskins & Jones, 2022). As Wilson (2008) articulates, this relational way is at the heart of being Indigenous. While not all editors nor authors within this special issue are Indigenous, we do all come to this project with a spirit of relationality, as a means of contributing to decolonial discussion within the fields in which we live, work and learn. Part of this discussion involves exploring tensions inherent in decolonial work between Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous allies. As editors, we lead the way in this discussion in this opening paper, to foreground these tensions in our own relationships. However, we first position ourselves as editors in particular contexts as well as in relation to each other.

lisahunter (pronouns they/them/it) has Celtic ancestry and comes from Yorta Yorta lands, on which the white colonial/settler-dominated education and social system significantly erased First Peoples and their ways. They were also grown up on Gubi Gubi Country but similarly with little acknowledgement, recognition or learning of First Peoples. English, Scottish, Māori and ‘Kiwi’ systems contributed significantly to further learning where it lived and worked for a substantial time. Now it learns from the Country where they live and work, on Boon Wurrung/Bunurong² Country in so-called Australia. They acknowledge Bundjil and Waang and offer respect for Boon Wurrung/Bunurong Elders past and present for their custodianship and ongoing generosity despite the trauma delivered by visitors/invaders/guests like my ancestors who never left or negotiated a treaty. They also pay homage to all First Peoples who have contributed to the growing knowledge and relationships that care for Country, not just the lands, but all that we are learning is Country – the lands, skies, waters, creatures, peoples and times. This caring is despite the atrocities of colonialisation, invasion, racism and acts towards their erasure and marginalisation. A significant living Elder, Aunty Carolyn Briggs, also Professor, has said ‘womindjeka’ to it. By this, Aunty Carolyn invited them to be clear about their obligations coming to her Country, to care for Country, care for the bubups³, and to have clear intentions as to why they have come to Country. It joins with the co-editors to offer the energy of this special issue as one small step behind so many more that are left to take, in solidarity with First Peoples.

Hayley is a mokopuna⁴ of Te Aupōuri in Te Tai Tokerau (the upper Northern part of the North Island) of Aotearoa New Zealand. She also descends from Scottish and Irish colonial/settlers and immigrants to Aotearoa New Zealand. Hayley grew up in a small rural town in Aotearoa New Zealand with a high Māori population and began her teaching career in South Auckland secondary schools with a large Pacific population. Hayley has always had a passion for embracing diversity, including gender and sexuality, as well as cultural diversity and the intersection between these.

Jean was born in Aotearoa New Zealand and is of Tongan descent from the villages of Makaunga and Kolovai on the island of Tongatapu and Tefisi village in Vava’u, Tonga. She is also of European heritage. She grew up in an area to the South of Auckland’s central business district, which has a large migrant community. As a member of a large predominantly brown migrant, Pacific community, Jean was acutely aware that her community was often represented in negative ways. This nurtured her passion for working with her community to challenge negative stereotypes and narrow representations. While Jean works with her community, she also acknowledges her history as a descendant of settlers and immigrants to Aotearoa New Zealand, and as such is aware of her visitor status as she raises her family on land that is not her own. Therefore, she stands in solidarity with Tangata Whenua⁵in their struggles for Tino Rangatiratanga.⁶

As articulated here through our positionality pieces, we are editors who are Indigenous and non-Indigenous. This positioning has raised tensions for us, but we have been able to broach these tensions through open dialogue as a means of navigating this space.

In her introduction to Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision, Battiste (2000) argued that there is a need for ‘moral dialogue’ with and between people working with Indigenous communities and peoples. This moral dialogue is what creates the basis or foundation for transformation. While we are not saying we have been successful in transforming this space, we do acknowledge how this openness has allowed us to discuss tensions in a safe manner. An example of this openness and safety was seen in discussions around the implementation of this project working with Indigenous and non-Indigenous colleagues. As editors, we have had discussions around the importance of positionality not only from our standpoint but for our other contributors to do this too. To this end, a positionality piece was a central requirement for submission to this special issue. Additionally, when writing this introduction, Jean raised concerns regarding the tension present in having a non-Indigenous scholar leading a special issue focused on Indigenous knowledges. Her concern was born out of the Indigenous people's call for self-determination, decolonisation and social justice, as well as being a Pacific researcher in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand, the land of Tangata Whenua, who continue to struggle for their rights as Indigenous peoples of Aotearoa. Following robust discussion we collectively decided that lisahunter would be the lead editor on this special issue, as they had carried the project and done a lot of the intellectual work in positioning the potential impact. Rather than rehearse historical divisions we wanted to demonstrate the importance of Indigenous and non-Indigenous working together with an openness to provide the cultural safety for Indigenous people's perspectives to be heard and prioritised.

Linda Smith’s (1999) seminal work Decolonising Methodologies draws attention and critique towards the Western notion of research. She argued that, ‘imperialism has been perpetuated through the ways in which knowledge about indigenous peoples was collected, classified and then represented in various ways through the eyes of the West, back to those who have been colonized’ (p. 1–2). As critical scholars, we are aware of these critiques and are cognisant of power that circulates within academia in which we work. Therefore, this special issue, while engaging scholars working in academic spaces, aims to provide provocations not to Indigenous peoples or communities, but rather to non-Indigenous scholars, encouraging them to be critical of their own practice, and the ways they engage with Indigenous people to ensure that their work is done in a spirit of allyship, rather than tokenism.

Introduction: Indigenous-settler/colonial/immigrant relationships, anthropogenic environmental concerns, and education systems in editors’ places – Australia and Aotearoa

Our positionality statements above are also contextualised within the historical and contemporary climates of Indigenous-settler/colonial/immigrant relationships, anthropogenic environmental concerns, and education systems where the field of HPE stands. Relationships to each other, in our human systems, and within a larger planetary ecology are arguably pivotal for planetary health and which we all have obligations towards. We illustrate this using our own contexts before exploring this concept drawn from Indigenous foundations.

lisahunter is positioned within the context of the nation state called Australia. Originally, the lands and waters of Australia were cared for by over 500 Indigenous sovereign nations and clans who today represent the longest-living continuous human culture on earth. Their shared obligation and connection was through their custodianship of these lands. In 1770, the land was stolen by the British military and convict colonisers. Many First Peoples were killed or dispossessed through disease and war and the colonial imposition of systems that forced assimilation. In 1901, colonial states and territories were federated to be called Australia. In 2023, the 18 + year-old population was required to vote in a national referendum referred to as the ‘Voice to Parliament’. They were asked to decide ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ as to whether a First Peoples representative body should be created to inform the government and as such be written into the Constitution. There was much debate by Indigenous and non-Indigenous citizens, including the promotion of ‘if you don’t know, vote no’! A few years earlier, Voice, Truth and Treaty were the three elements of the Uluru Statement from the Heart (2017), a request by a significant group of First Peoples representatives. It reflects calls since British colonisation. These calls were for a way to be heard, and a Makarrata Commission that would supervise truth-telling and Treaty processes, that is, Truth and Treaty. While ignorance and apathy were two significant mechanisms around which the successful ‘No’ vote was mustered (60%), there were deeper concerns that the Voice model being proposed would not be enough for First Peoples to truly be heard. It also signalled to First Peoples that 40% of the population were allies and the importance of Indigenous and non-Indigenous working together towards self-determination. However, the results are interpreted; it is clear that racism towards First Peoples still exists within Australia. Since British colonisation in 1770, the fact that the land has never been ceded remains a significant issue for the true unification of Australia, and enabling self-determination for First Peoples. The current government can ensure we tell the truth about the colonial past and bring together the best of a multitude of world ethnicities now situated in Australia for more equitable, just and decolonised systems, relationships and future. This includes in fields such as Health and Physical Education which is a product and reinforcement of a colonial education system. Through HPE curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and systems, we all have opportunities to educate for planetary health with First Peoples.

Within the context of Aotearoa New Zealand, the 2023 national election resulted in the coalition of a new government. In the short period that this government has been in power, they have made clear that their focus of getting Aotearoa back on track involves direct attacks on Indigenous rights, our earth, and our most vulnerable communities. These attacks have involved, the active encouragement of prioritising English over Te Reo Māori and the removal of Te Reo Māori names from public service agencies (Murray, 2024); the planning to disestablish the Māori Health Authority who are tasked with the management of Māori health policies, services and outcomes (Murray, 2024); and, plans to rewrite the history of one of our founding documents Te Tiriti o Waitangi through plans to review the principles of the Treaty via a national referendum (Radio New Zealand, 2023). Additionally, they have repealed prior government policies that aim to assist in climate change actions, such as repealing the clean car discount scheme which was put in place to actively encourage the purchasing of elective and hybrid vehicles (Murray, 2024). They have also repealed what was popularly known as ‘three waters’. This legislation, also known as the Affordable Water Reform, focused on removing community control of water assets and prescribing co-governance as a means of ensuring adequate water infrastructure and water quality (Desmarais, 2023). On the educational front, they have implemented a central focus on what they identify as the fundamentals of academic achievement, reading, writing and maths. Amongst this focus, they have articulated plans to remove the sexuality and relationships guidelines from schools (1News Reporters, 2023) and plan to repeal amendments to Smokefree regulations that aimed to limit the sale of tobacco to young people and work towards smoking rates for all population groups to be less than 5% (Ministry of Health, 2023).

It is against this political backdrop that this special issue sits. We believe that with these central and nation state system attacks on Indigenous rights, planetary health and health education, this special issue is an important forum for speaking back and challenging contemporary political powerbrokers. These papers centralise a focus on the importance of Indigenous knowledges within teacher education, sport education, health education and physical education. Before moving to illustrations of how such work is being done, it may be useful to provide some background to planetary health, as an Indigenous-led concept, and an argument for it being an obligation for our field.

In 2019, Aotearoa New Zealand hosted the International Union for Health Promotion and Education World Conference Waiora: Promoting Planetary Health and Sustainable Development For All where the First Peoples’ (Māori) concept of Waiora drove the conference. Not only was the aim to co-design, co-lead and co-own the conference with non-Indigenous and Indigenous working together, the theme of Waiora referenced the interconnectedness of our physical and spiritual worlds. As an emerging concept, planetary health was about capturing the complexity and interconnectedness of all earth systems:

the achievement of the highest attainable standard of health, wellbeing, and equity worldwide through judicious attention to the human systems – political, economic, and social – that shape the future of humanity and the Earth’s natural systems that define the safe environmental limits within which humanity can flourish. Put simply, planetary health is the health of human civilisation and the state of the natural systems on which it depends. (Whitmee et al., 2015, p. 1978)

Advocacy for an ecological earth-centred approach to health stimulated conceptual shifts and a greater willingness to work with Indigenous ways, across disciplines, is yet to be taken up in any meaningful way in HPE.

Moving towards practices that honour Indigenous knowledges and contribute to planetary health, through HPE

In 2020, we experienced a world health pandemic of unprecedented scale. The spread of the disease was aided by the activities of globalisation and to some extent, by the lack of individual and systemic responses to disease prevention spread. Covid19 offered an opportunity to reflect on zoonosis, enhanced climate change and other anthropogenic influences on planetary health, making visible hidden inequities and calling into stronger debate issues of sustainability. Just prior to the Covid19 outbreak, there was a growing awareness by dominant scientific and western knowledge systems of the need to pay attention to First Peoples¹, knowledges, perspectives and histories to heal past wrongs. Central to this movement was a commitment to honouring different ways of knowing, being, doing and valuing, and working together for solutions in areas such as health and wellbeing. Yet, as some of the special issue papers show, there is a long way to go for widespread and deep change if Indigenous ways of knowing, being, doing and valuing are to have the sort of impact on planetary health that is needed for life to be better for all, AND to right some of the wrongs associated with colonialisation and dominance of particular ways of knowing, being, doing and valuing. Becoming more aware of what is lost through dominance rather than dialogue, and shifting towards equity is not an uncommon purpose or discussion in audiences of and fields related to this journal. Diversity, inclusion, and equity (EDI) are words commonly driving or justifying research in our field and/or practices by those in research, teaching, learning, and teacher education associated with HPE. Carolina Poblete Gálvez has asked, ‘Can we move towards a decolonization, depatriarchalization and deracialization of physical education? The path does not seem easy, but it is possible and necessary.’ (2021, p. 21). Below we acknowledge the work of those who are showing it is possible, but that as a field, we still have a lot of work to do. Against this backdrop, the papers in this issue repeat calls to action, while proffering the sorts of paths such actions might take.

Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing at conferences in the field

To a peak body related to this journal, the Association Internationale des Écoles Supérieures d'Éducation Physique (The International Organization for Physical Education in Higher Education or AIESEP), lisahunter’s keynote address (2021) challenged the audience/field to revisit some of the important work of the past that acted to bridge dominant, scientific, western knowledge systems with Indigenous and other marginalised or subjugated knowledge systems and groups. This included ancient knowledge systems such as Daoist principles and practices, languages other than English, arts-based and aesthetic, spiritually oriented, more-than-human, and with other sensory systems beyond the dominant ocular. Work by Indigenous knowledge holders and non-Indigenous allies, like Janice Forsyth (2007, 2014), Gary Khor (2000, 2001) Farah Palmer (2000, 2007), Brendan Hokowhitu (2003, 2004), Joannie Halas (2014), Bevan Erueti and Jeremy Hapeta (2011) were argued to be valuable contributions for those responsible for curriculum for health and physical education, sport education, health education, sport and physical activity organisations, teacher education and education more widely. Such works, however, have not become central in the field in the same way that curriculum models such as fundamental motor skills, teaching games for understanding, health-oriented physical education or sports education have.

The absence of acknowledging and honouring Indigenous ways, and walking together as non-Indigenous allies with and for Indigenous ways has become part of several panel discussions in our field. One was at the Australian Association for Research in Education in 2019 where a conference sharing circle challenged dominant deficits (lisahunter, 2019; Welch et al., 2019). This work continued in 2020 as ongoing commitments to honour First Nations through invitation, recognition, working together and acknowledging Country. Another field discussion was part of AIESEP, 2021 where an international and interdisciplinary focused symposium engaged in complicated conversations around honouring Indigenous ways of knowing through physical education, sport and physical activity settings (Lee Schaefer, Hariata Tai Rakena, Derek Wasyliw, Alex M. McComber, Lee Sheppard, lisahunter, Andrew Bennie). What Indigenous ways of knowing are, is in and of itself, a difficult question to answer given the diversity of Indigenous nations across the world. However, following Durie (2004), they agreed that what binds the network of Indigenous peoples the world over is not the shared experience of colonisation but rather the innate understanding and connection with the land, waters, skies and fauna associated with the territories they live and for which they take responsibility.

Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars working in health, sport, physical education and physical activity in Canada, Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia shared their experiences of attempting to incorporate the Indigenous ways of knowing that were contextual to the places they resided, into their teaching, programming and research. Each of these countries held a colonial past and present and thus offered unique differences as well as commonalities of post-colonial efforts to honour Indigenous people and their ways of knowing. While the areas of sport, physical education and physical activity promotion are distinct and often siloed into disciplinary boundaries, they are share a connection to physical culture, movement, and the body. Each scholar gave insight and context into how they were conceptualising Indigenous ways of knowing as well as the obstacles and opportunities they had experienced in attempting to decolonise, indigenise and/or re-indigenise. What they shared were the distinct, plural and complex ways that Indigenous ways of knowing are conceptualised in three countries, but also the affinities that exist across borders in attempting to incorporate Indigenous ways of knowing into sport, physical education and physical activity promotion.

This was extended further at the AIESEP 2022 Gold Coast conference with a First Nations keynote (Professor Braden Hill); a conference theme focused on honouring First Nations; centering First Nations for acknowledgement and with a Welcome to Country featuring a performance by the local First Peoples Yugambeh Choir; and a movement session associated with Indigenous games (Yulunga: Learn Australian Indigenous Games by Ken Edwards and Brendan SueSee). Included in the special theme was a double symposium (Table 1) created for responses by a First Nations scholar (Troy Meston) and a long-term ally scholar (Maree Dinan-Thomson). These were situated with other papers in the special named stream (Table 2) – a volume that reflects a spike rather than a continuum that AIESEP is yet to maintain. Significant systemic change towards Indigenous inclusion was attempted in 2023 (see below) but has not been matured in a sustainable way since the Gold Coast conference.

Table 1. 2022 AIESEP Honouring Indigenous Knowledges in Research and Education: Frameworks and Practice double symposium participants and papers.

Authors	Title
Lee Sheppard	Open your munga (ear) and listen: Aboriginal voices in sport for development programs
lisahunter	Voice, Truth and Treaty: An (un)Australian curriculum priority that (dis)honors First Nations peoples?
Karen Lambert	‘Doing’ more than reading: Reflecting upon how to develop embodied pedagogies for decentering whiteness
Sue Whatman, Ali Sammel	A transactional understanding of Indigenous knowledge production in health and physical education: ‘what makes you healthy and well’
Alison Wrench	Decolonising possibilities: Health and Physical Education in Initial Teacher Education
lisahunter, Andrew Bennie, Tony Rossi	Higher Education, white apathy, systemic racism and echo chambers: Is a white colonizer critical friend enough?
Lee Schaefer, Hariata Tai Rakena, Derek Wasyliw, Alex M. McComber	Culturally Grounded Pedagogies: An ongoing exploration of Indiginizing PHETE

Table 2. Other 2022 AIESEP papers in ‘Honouring Indigenous Knowledges’ stream.

Authors	Title
Tegwen Gadais, Luc Parlavecchio, Audrey-Anne Beauchamp, Philippe Chaubet, Brice Favier-Ambrosini	Experiences of a researcher-practitioner in an Indigenous context in a perspective of a psychosocial sport and outdoor program to youth
Susannah Ruth Stevens	The Hikairo Schema for Secondary: A New Zealand resource constructed for self-reflection on culturally responsive teaching and learning
Erin Centeio, Ku'ulei Serna	I Pa‘a Ka Huewai Pawehe: Integrating Native Hawaiian culture into Health and Physical Education
Shane Pill, John Evans, John Williams, Michael Davies	Physical Education and Cross-Curriculum Priorities: Using Indigenous knowledges to understand sport as a site of resistance against the hegemony of the State
Lee Sheppard, Steven Rynne, and Jon Willis; Paul Mead, Steven Rynne	Sport for Land: Mining industry-funded sport for development programs for First Nations people

Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing in educational institutions

While such concepts and actions are slow to trickle into mainstream health education, HPE and related areas of movement and education, there are also some illustrative examples of schools and universities that have embraced aspects of Indigenous ways of knowing, being, doing and valuing. Inspirations from Aotearoa include Indigenous-led institutions, such as full immersion schools (Māori kura kaupapa) and tertiary institutions (e.g. Te Wānanga o Aotearoa and Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi) and Indigenous-led courses within some tertiary institutions. An example of such courses or programs includes Whakatinanahia⁷, a second stage course in the Bachelor of Sport, Health and Physical Education at Waipapa Taumata Rau, The University of Auckland. The course examines Māori approaches to embodiment, forms of physicality and movement valuable for educational and health settings in Aotearoa New Zealand. Students gain knowledge through engaging in forms of Māori physical culture in a range of contexts. The course is planned, led and taught by Māori staff members. Further examples of such courses include Gukwonderuk (Figure 1) in Australia, health and healing in Hawai‘i (Figure 2) and Indigenous Health in Canada (Figure 3).

Figure 1. Website screenshot for Gokwonderuk https://www.monash.edu/medicine/about/indigenous-health.

Figure 2. University of Hawai‘i degree in Indigenous health knowledges https://westoahu.hawaii.edu/academics/degrees/applied-science/hawaiian-and-indigenous-health-and-healing/.

Figure 3. Website screenshot for University of British Columbia Indigenous Health https://health.indigenous.ubc.ca/.

A limited number of these units and programs are available to preservice teachers and if so, they are often set as electives and not within mainstream curriculum. We argue that there needs to be an increase in the number, visibility and value of such programmes and educational approaches globally. While not central, there has been some attention to Indigenous games/sports as they have played a part in Aotearoa New Zealand’s health and physical education school and teacher education curriculum (Brown, 2014). Canada too has had some focus on Indigenous games and sports, increasing mainstream engagement with Indigenous health and wellbeing knowledges, and more recently discussions about appropriated histories of dominant sports. In Australia, the peak sporting body, Sport Australia, acted as a distribution point of an Indigenous games resource (Yulunga) well before HPE curriculum engagement could claim meeting expectations of the national curriculum to pay attention across curriculum through three priorities, one of the three being ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures’. There are now some local competitions of Indigenous games in schools and universities/teacher education institutions, albeit only on a small scale. We endorse such moves and encourage their wider uptake through Indigenous-led partnerships.

Despite some engagement in some programs, Indigenous ways of knowing, being, doing and valuing often appear absent, tokenistic or with a minority and separate status. Where Indigenous ways of knowing and doing are included in sports, games and movements, they are often relegated to a single lesson focused on an Indigenous practice (Hokowhitu, 2019). Without the Indigenous knowledge related to such activities, they also appear tokenistic (Poblete Gálvez, et al., 2020). Rarely are many knowledge systems and ways of being embedded or woven throughout preservice courses in a manner that reflects any sort of value for non-dominating ways. Therefore, we need to continue to ask questions and be reflexive of our practices as Indigenous and non-Indigenous to ensure that our moves do not reinforce Indigeneity as tokenistic, but rather as something to be valued.

But not there yet … 

In our field, there has been recognition of the settler-colonial appropriation of Indigenous games/sports (see, for example, hockey and lacrosse in Turtle Island, Australian Rules Football from a First Nations game Marngrook, the misappropriation of the Haka in rugby) and arguments for the inclusion of appropriately situated Indigenous knowledges/games/movements (see lisahunter et al., 2023; Wilson, 2021). Empirical evidence supports the importance of traditional games, to preserve cultural identity, truth-telling after settler–colonial dominance and to teach values such as peace (see for example Rivera Ricardo et al., 2023). Physical Education’s ‘tribute to the hegemony of Eurocentric knowledge’ (Poblete Gálvez, 2021, p. 218) has been evidenced and challenged for some time too (see Flintoff, 2018) including across forms of violence reflected in sexism, racism, queerphobia and bodily differences.

Calls to decolonise and/or indigenise are neither new in education nor in HPE-related fields (Fitzpatrick, 2013; Fitzpatrick & Allen, 2019; Whatman et al., 2017). Yet there seems a dearth of notice/action globally despite international agreements such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (United Nations, 2007) and national/local educational and/or research formal or informal agreements and guidelines (see, for example, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) Code of Ethics for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research and AIATSIS Guide to Applying the Code of Ethics, 2022).

Some of the 2022 AIESEP presentations are represented in this special edition and speak to the ongoing need for systemic, institutional and personal change in our field. As noted by Lee Sheppard (this special issue), international conferences such as AIESEP, national equivalents, and discipline-specific conferences that relate to our interconnected fields, are still white spaces that are not necessarily welcoming to Indigenous people, are not embracing the original or deeper meanings of Indigenous movement/sport/health concepts, nor acting for planetary health with Indigenous knowledge and partners. Such challenges were made in a 2014 AIESEP keynote by Brendan Hokowhitu and again in 2023 by Carolina Poblete Gálvez and we would argue that systemically, these points have still not become evident in our field.

This special issue was one attempt to (again) ask of and challenge our field, asking ‘Where is HPE curriculum in the recognition of, honouring of, and working with Indigenous peoples and their ways of knowing, being, doing and valuing?’ Whether towards truth-telling, treaty making, unity without erasing or hierarchising differences, using healing epistemologies, ensuring inclusion and/or constituting new possibilities, the dominant and dominating fields that constitute our curriculum are organised by ways that have overlooked, absented, erased or appropriated that which is Indigenous. You will see such evidence in the papers of this special issue. The ‘red thread’ that connects these papers stimulates further action to answer: What can our related fields and their curricula do to rectify, learn from and work with that which is Indigenous? Coupled to this is a call to question which concepts, identities, practices and values need destabilisation in order for us to challenge the current hegemony that renders Indigenous silent or absent. Further, what relationships need healing, development, support, acknowledgement and celebration for such to happen? What systems, such as white superiority, patriarchy and Western science, need challenging to make room for marginalised systems and relationships to be nourished so that alternative knowledges might be legitimised?

Repeating calls to action and obligations towards planetary health

The ‘Call for Papers’ for this special issue built on a 2019 commitment by members of the national Australian Association for Research in Education HPE Special Interest Group (AARE HPE SIG) and the 2021 International Association for Physical Education in Higher Education (AIESEP) field, to continue to engage in complicated conversations around honouring Indigenous ways of knowing/being/doing/valuing. This commitment was to be built on Indigenous and non-Indigenous collaborations across HPE, teacher education, sport and physical activity settings around which a number of documents serve to guide this change. Among these, United Nations (2007) acknowledges that the fundamental and foundational human rights of Indigenous peoples can be categorised into four key principles:

• self-determination.

• participation in decision-making.

• respect for and protection of culture.

• equality and non-discrimination.

Honouring such principles is a multifaceted undertaking given the diversity of Indigenous Peoples across the world and some of the historical violence that has ignored or erased Indigenous Peoples and their sovereignty (Moreton-Robinson, 2015), including through academic work (Smith & Smith, 2019), and reconciling Indigenous knowledge in education (Battiste, 2018). After Kame’eleihiwa (1992), and many others since, we also accept that one of the factors binding the network of Indigenous Peoples globally is their connection to a long relationship with time and place and colonisation. Theirs is a worldview that contrasts ethically, ontologically and epistemologically with dominant Western societies where HPE/HPETE is operating.

Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars working in HPE/HPETE, and their corresponding professional organisations and affiliations, were invited to submit theoretical and empirical work where they are approaching an United Nations (2007) principle/s, acknowledging and developing Indigenous ways of knowing/being/doing that are contextual to the places they reside, and/or into their teaching, programming, and research. Submissions could focus on, but not be limited to, how they are conceptualising Indigenous ways of knowing/being/doing; the obstacles and opportunities they have experienced in attempting to (re)indigenise and decentre whiteness; share distinct, plural and complex ways that Indigenous ways of knowing are conceptualised in local/global contexts; or the affinities that exist across borderlands in attempting to incorporate Indigenous ways of knowing and decentre whiteness. From Indigenous scholars, we also invited contributions that sit outside western-scientific worldviews

Listening to Indigenous people, we know to act, and action requires reflection, with Indigenous partners, to move to deeper understandings of the tensions, considerations, and affordances of doing anti-colonial/settler/racist work. The opening paper in the issue by Lee Sheppard, Listening to Aboriginal voices of sport for development at conferences in Australia: A Black researcher’s account is a reminder of the need to address systemic discrimination, unconscious bias, wilful ignorance, colour blindness and what might be more subtle or non-conscious practices that exclude Indigenous partners, real and/or potential. It is through human relationships and practices that action occurs in many forms, so understanding one’s history and positioning becomes an important first step to be followed by deliberate action in the institutions and systems we influence, listening for what Sheppard reinforces as ‘both ways’ relationships. In the setting of conferences and the research presented at conferences, Sheppard experienced ‘presentations and discourses confronting because mob were usually spoken about as passive recipients of sport, SfD, or PE programs’ (p.x). For her and her supervisor/s to experience such discrimination reminds all participants of their responsibility to nurture, respectfully engage and even mentor new presenters/researchers, rather than employ practices that diminish researchers and research, particularly for those in marginalised positions. Her recent experiences occurred despite the myriad of guidelines (see earlier) and good practice already available to academics and professionals for more ethical behaviour in research and conferencing. Accountability by associations and research teams will only come with members paying attention to dominating practices and providing nourishing environments. Many of the papers that follow either repeat or expand actions that are required to decentre dominating practices and make research space not only culturally safe for First Peoples, but culturally nourishing as different perspectives are embraced and encouraged.

In the next paper, Alison Wrench pays attention to some of what frames such harmful practices described in the previous paper. She works with whiteness, the publicness of education, and the conditions of possibility that sustain dominating practices. She argues for enhancing educational justice for Indigenous students by reframing HPE pedagogical and curriculum practices. With some parallels, Troy Meston, Debbie Bargallie and Sue Whatman (this issue) explore racial literacy and the place and power of criticality and Indigenous knowledge in HPE/HPETE, also demonstrating how Indigenous and non-Indigenous working together speaks to ‘both ways’ to which Lee Sheppard refers. Despite more than 30 years of critical theory orientations to race, gender, sexuality, disability, etc., in our field, they suggest criticality is still lacking; however, it remains necessary to developing racial literacies and interrupting ‘recurring epistemic violence’. While they point to Australia as their focus, others, including those in the final papers in this issue, suggest similar enablers and constraints in other countries/systems, and we would concur, internationally.

The next two papers have an international focus, one particularly on games and the other on health. Graeme Bonato, Maree Dinan-Thompson and Peta Salter provide results of a systematic review of one foundational knowledge area of HPE curriculum and pedagogy, specifically games, in this case Indigenous games as Indigenous knowledge and perspectives in PETE. Culturally relevant pedagogy is marked as a dominant enabler while teacher cultural awareness and curriculum currently constrain the enactment of Traditional Indigenous Games. Power to the People: Exploring Glocality as a Framework for Sustainable Development Goals Implementation at Universities in Canada and Mexico by Lana Ray, Aurelio Sánchez Suárez, and Kristin Burnett offers a sustainability ‘framework to disrupt whiteness in Indigenous health partnerships and research at universities … ’. Adopting such anti-colonial work is captured in their practice and readers can consider what it might look like in their own modes of relating, albeit in different contexts or related fields. Drawing on their own experiences, they discuss ‘how a glocal framework encourages the development of deep understanding, challenges power dynamics, privileges Indigenous knowledge systems, and holds settler institutions accountable to the spaces in which they are situated’ (p.x). Their use of grounded normativity also captures important qualities of engagement for non-Indigenous towards Indigenous. They make ‘Recommendations for partnerships and research in the health disciplines … ’ (p.x) which aligns with other more generic documents such as United Nations (2007), in more specific national/local guidelines such as AIATSIS, and sits with more specific frameworks and guidelines such as Schaefer et al. (2023).

In the paper written by Jordina Quain, Lorel Mayberry, Jacqui Hendriks, Amanda Sibosado and Giselle Woodley, Mooditj – Indigenous Australian sexuality education adapted for hilltribe youth of Northern Thailand: Evaluation of delivery through mixed-methods approach, the authors forefront contextualised Indigenous knowledge and experience as the underpinning principle when facilitating any programmes with, by and for Indigenous communities. They explain that ‘Mooditj’ known as ‘good’ or ‘solid knowledge’ in Noongar language … is an impact evaluated sexuality education program developed in 2002 by Sexual Health Quarters after an extensive consultation process with First Nations populations. The program uses interactive activities designed to educate 11–14-year-old First Nations youth about sexual health, life and relationship skills. The programme was then successfully adapted within Northern Thailand by local and Indigenous leaders, hilltribe educators and sexuality education practitioners to meet the needs of hilltribe youth. Echoing other papers in this special issue, the authors remind us of the centrality of respect for community, culture and collaboration when working with Indigenous populations. Regarding health education as a subject, they highlight the limited amount of Indigenous knowledge, experience and ways of being within relationships and sexuality education globally and problematise the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach as echoed throughout this special issue. In their paper titled Māori and Pacific students’ resistance to colonial cis-heteronormative discourse within high schools in Aotearoa New Zealand, Hayley McGlashan and Jean M. Uasike Allen share student narratives via their critical ethnographic work in schools to articulate the strength of cis-heteronormativity within NZ classrooms. However, by highlighting the experiences of Indigenous and Pacific students, as well as those who identify as sex, gender and/or sexuality diverse and engaging queer theory and Tongan concepts, they demonstrate how the inclusion of non-western knowledges has the potential to open up space to allow for the subversion of dominant colonial understandings of relationships and sexuality.

Conclusion

The interconnectedness captured in concepts such as planetary health has a history in Indigenous ways of knowing, being, doing and valuing. The papers in this issue, speak to the growing awareness, willingness and to some extent, desire in our field towards Indigenous and non-Indigenous partnerships, non-Indigenous allyship and decolonising current systems of domination that are ultimately interconnected and affecting humans as part of a bigger planet system. While individual papers target different areas of research and teaching, crossed with particular settings such as schools and universities, there is scope for the recommendations from each to inform HPE/sport pedagogy/health education teacher education and related curriculum, HPE curriculum and educational practices associated with movement. Given some of the forums listed earlier in this paper and our own experiences, we are sure many readers may have heard of such examples or similar by now, have willingness towards listening, and will next operationalise much of the advice captured amongst the papers. Perhaps there are synergies there for adopting or upscaling your action, as action-based alliances for a critical mass, and for another special issue.

A common call across papers is for criticality. This is also not a new call for our field, to pay attention to power to understand the implicit dominance or common sense of framings of HPE; understanding power relations when engaging with, for and within Indigenous knowledges; and, ensuring Indigenous knowledges are playing a fundamental role in education. Approaches focused on deep listening, self-reflection and positioning, activism, culturally responsive pedagogy and human togetherness echo approaches being used effectively outside HPE/HPETE, to enhance educational/health/planetary justice for Indigenous students and teachers, but also in all educational fields that we touch.

While some in our field may not realise their relationship with Indigenous knowledges, or be as close to issues involving Indigenous people, understanding our obligations towards planetary health may reveal the interconnections. Currently, there are strengthening shifts towards Indigenous self-determination that is supporting the centering of Indigenous knowledges, internationally through guidelines such as United Nations (2007) but also educationally more locally (Page & Trudgett, 2024) towards international change. This special issue is about drawing attention to current work in our field taking steps towards planetary health through/with Indigenous knowledges. We hope it will stimulate greater attention to Indigenous ways of knowing, being, doing and valuing, partnerships with and for First Peoples, and a critique of dominant ways of knowing being, doing and valuing in our field (and related). Specifically, as dominant, we are referring to aspects of our field that reflects taken-for-granted assumptions embedded in whiteness, euro-western, scientific, often English speaking and Christian, and patriarchal systems that arguably act as foundations to our field. It is also to remind those that have settler/colonial/invader histories in this field that to be ‘not racist’ takes self-education, allyship, relationship building and proactively asking how our field includes Indigenous people? It also takes working with Indigenous people to come together to realise Indigenous community aspirations and forge shared but not assimilated ways of knowing, being, doing and valuing. Like all papers in this edition, we can be working towards planetary health in small and large ways, through human-to-human relationships AND conceptually shifting where human obligations fit in enhancing the planet for all in their diversity.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Chris Hickey who supported this project, reviewers who offered valuable commentary for all the papers, and the other authors for their work and cooperation to make this special issue, and to all Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who have contributed in some way towards a better future for our field.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

lisahunter

Dr lisahunter (they/it) lives and works in Bundjil’s Country which is unceded Boon Wurrung Country, colonially and more recently called Australia where Traditional Custodians have cared for Country for thousands of generations. lisahunter’s ancestry is Celtic, five to six generations ago landing and living in colonial Australia, grown up through a hegemonic white patriarchal education environment. They research and teach in areas such as equity in/for education, teacher education, health settings and education, health and physical education, queering education, and decolonising/indigenising for/by/with education. They have learned much from First People in Australia, as well as Māori, Buddhist and Daoist philosopher practitioners and acknowledge the gifts of those ways of knowing, being, doing and valuing. I pay my respects to all Indigenous people and their knowledges, their Elders past and present and to those Indigenous contributors and their collaborators to this special issue. I also acknowledge Hayley and Jean for their contributions, kindness and tenacity in navigating coloniser settings together.

Hayley McGlashan Fainu

Dr Hayley McGlashan Fainu is a lecturer in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland. She has a background in teaching health and physical education in high schools and has a passion for safe and inclusive learning environments which enhance the mana⁸ and wellbeing of all students. Hayley teaches and researches in health education, physical education, gender and sexuality, post-colonial feminist theory, Mātauranga Māori and critical ethnography.

Jean M. Uasike Allen

Dr Jean M. Uasike Allen is a lecturer in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland. She has a background in teaching in primary schools, and universities and is passionate about education, justice and her community. Her research canvases a range of fields including health education, media representations, stereotyping, post-colonial theory, Indigenising education, Pacific methodologies and arts-based methods. Jean is the author of numerous articles and book chapters and is a member of the Centre for Arts and Social Transformation (CAST).

Notes

1 Conventions vary in capitalization of the noun Indigenous. Some use capitalized I for specific First Peoples only and some lower case i for First Peoples globally. We have chosen to always capitalize unless quotes or references do otherwise.

2 Both groups are acknowledged knowing that contestation has been caused by colonial actions.

3 Boon Wurrung word for children

4 Mokopuna is Te Reo Māori for Grandchild or descendant.

5 Indigenous people of Aotearoa.

6 Tino Rangatiratanga is Te Reo Māori for sovereignty.

7 Whakatinanahia is Te Reo Māori for embodiment.

8 The term mana refers to prestige, authority, control, power, influence, status, spiritual power and/or charisma.